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Tina Sanchez
One moment Tina Sanchez was standing on the pavement, the next she was in it.

Sanchez had to be pulled out of a sinkhole Monday by East Joliet Firefighters when the ground gave way in the mobile home park where she lives at 1703 S. Chicago St.

About 6 p.m. Sanchez and her son were walking past a nearby home when she stopped to talk to a neighbor near a parking space and a steel drain, she said. Without warning, she fell into the ground and had to hold on to her son and try to brace her feet against the drain, she said.

"I was freaking out," Sanchez said. "The more I kept trying to get up, the more I kept falling in."

Sanchez said she was lucky a van was parked in the spot so she could hold onto the bumper while her son called 911. "All I could see were feet when (firefighters) arrived," she said.

Sanchez was pulled from the hole and taken to the hospital. Her buttocks and groin were badly bruised from the impact, she said.

Sanchez was using ice packs and medication to cope with the pain Wednesday. Insurance issues were preventing her from going to see an orthopedic specialist the hospital recommended.

"I'm afraid to go back down that way, my mind is still not right," she said. "I'm concerned someone else could get hurt."